Coming off an underwhelming performance at the Atlantic 10 Championships, the Fordham cross country team continued its championship season on Friday at the NCAA Northeast Regional Championship at Van Cortlandt Park. Facing their toughest competition to date in harsh weather, both squads held their own in the meet that featured over 40 schools. The men placed 15th out of 39 teams, while the women placed 27th out of 40.

With wind chills dropping below the 32 degrees, 262 male runners raced at Van Cortlandt in Fordham’s largest meet of the season thus far. While the weather lessened the team’s emphasis on times, fresh- man Thomas Slattery led the Rams with 31:38 in the 10K event, and 60th overall in competition. Junior Quincy O’Connor followed Slattery just one second later in 62nd place, while fellow junior Mike Turi fin- ished with a time of 31:43 in 73rd place. The tight race also featured freshman Nik O’Brien and a trio of sophomores in Jake Duckworth, Adam Schwenzfeier and Devin Rocks. While Rocks was Fordham’s last runner to cross the line, he was still less than four minutes behind the overall leader, Jake Byrne of Iona, who came in with a time of 30:26.

The women raced against similar- ly tough competition in their noon- time race. Crossing the line first for Fordham was perennial leader Bri- anna Tevnan, who ran a 21:51 in the 6K race, a personal record.

“We had some stiff opponents,” Tevnan said. “Competing against the top Division One teams in the North East is no easy feat. Mentally, it was taxing, but we were on our home course of Van Cortlandt and despite the strong head wind and near freezing temperatures I think we performed better than at A-10s in Pittsburgh.”

The women’s race, which fea- tured 275 women across 40 teams, was just as packed as the men’s race. While senior Mara Lieberman fin- ished less than a minute behind Tevnan, she came in 147th overall. Sophomore Ariana Bottalico came in next with a time of 23:03, coming in 164th place. “When the weather conditions are harsh, the race be- comes even more about competition and place and less about time,” said Bottalico. “There were so many competitors, which made it harder to run together.”